


ever fallen in love with someone? (that you shouldn't have fallen in love with)

by justprompts



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, BAMF Tom Riddle, Child Abuse, Exorcisms, F/M, Harry Potter Deserves Better, I tried for angst, Light Angst, M/M, Priest Abuse, Reincarnation, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Tom Riddle is Not Voldemort, Wool's Orphanage (Harry Potter), Young Tom Riddle, author knows nil about witch-burning/related practices but she's trying thanks, harry's new name is peter coz there's pretty much nothing worse, i like muggles and tom riddle forming bonds, it has a vaguely mysterious vibe, just read like every line carefully, or u might miss something, tom deserves SO MUCH BETTER ugh, whiff of a little too much but i think this steers clear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27975534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justprompts/pseuds/justprompts
Summary: Peter Macdonald sometimes dreams about a boy in a cupboard.He wonders if he would be happier in a cupboard too.On a grey morning, he meets Tom Riddle.He might not remember him, but his soul sure does.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Comments: 11
Kudos: 188





	1. i don't want you and i don't want your crown

>   
>  _"you taste like  
>  tear soaked  
>  pillows  
>  and like half finished  
>  poems  
>  you taste like  
>  sad dreams  
>  and  
>  happy nightmares  
>  you taste of salt  
>  and blood  
>  and  
>  scars and magic  
>  (do you believe in magic?)  
>  and underlined  
>  words -  
>  (i didn't either but i met you)  
>  they spell out a story  
>  do you  
>  want  
>  to  
>  read it  
>  i did because  
>  you taste like fire and the unexpected  
>  but in a way,  
>  i knew this was long coming"_

The first time Peter Macdonald saw the little boy, he was just six. The same as him, yet - so, so different. The first time Peter saw the boy - was maybe, not the first time the boy saw him. Maybe, the first time Peter thinks he saw him, wasn't the first time either.

His father, Alfred Reginald Macdonald, a high superior in the office that dealt that Muggleborn or Muggle raised children, and Cases of Accidental Magic, was angry. Really, really angry - which usually ended with Peter lying flat on his back in his room, the hard mattress digging into his back - _as he observed red stained fingers against the prim, white ceiling through long forgotten tears._

_( - sometimes, he dreams of a boy who looked the same as him, had the same green eyes and dark hair as his own, but instead of the white ceiling, the boy would blink back tears and stare at the cupboard walls - Peter always wonders why the boy is in a cupboard, but nothing makes sense in dreams, anyway, right? - )_

But this time - Alfred Macdonald wasn't even remotely angry with him, so he plucked up his courage and dared to go a little nearer to the fireplace, still out of his father's sight, of course - where one of his juniors reported a case of Accidental Magic to him. The man sounded dead terrified, and Peter felt for him. Truly.

" - yes, sir, actually Fawley went to the - "

" - Fawley is an incompetent, cowardly - "

" - the boy, if you could just meet him - "

" - YOU WANT ME - ME - TO INVESTIGATE A FIELD CASE OF ACCIDENTAL MAGIC DONE BY A _SIX YEAR OLD CHILD_ \- "

" - I'm so sorry, sir, its just that he _isn't the normal kind of_ \- "

" - WE'RE WIZARDS, YOU IMBECILE, NONE OF US ARE NORMAL - and my wife is out for a day more, atleast - I CANNOT leave my child ALONE in the house in these times, its DANGEROUS - "

" - sir, I'm sure we could arrange a sitter at the Ministry - "

" - as if he would survive in the real world out there - the pathetic squib that my son is, his mother pampers him too much - weak, _so disappointingly weak_ \- "

Peter clenches his fists and squeezes his eyes shut, as he runs towards his room - footsteps light, hopes his father didn't see him. He isn't a squib, _he isn't, he isn't, he isn't_ \- and he knows he has never shown any concrete signs of magic, but he can feel it sometimes. Just below the surface, lurking and thrumming - healing him faster than he ought to, but there's no way to be certain and definitely none to show to his father.

"Peter, come here," he calls in a hard voice, through the living room, and his heartbeat speeds up, but he walks down fast - hoping he doesn't look like he just heard his own father calling him pathetic -

"You'll be coming with me to my work," he says, his lip curling scornfully as he looks at him. Peter blinks in surprise, and nods, almost about to smile a bit, maybe, until he says mockingly, "Its a Case of Accidental Magic, at a Muggle Orphanage in London. Merlin knows you can learn something from there, if not Magic, then, atleast gratitude."

He bites his tongue before he can incriminate himself by saying that he is grateful. 

He nods shakily, before going to change into Muggle clothes, sighing.

_( - his clothing fits him perfectly, because Alfred Reginald's son may be a squib, but he will still not look like scum, and he wonders why there are times he feels that the clothes should be big on him, atleast five sizes bigger - )_

Almost twenty years later, his father is going to wish he never learnt anything from the boy at the Orphanage. But till then, Peter will keep biting his tongue - will keep his feelings to himself - block his mind, and when, he finally does go to a school to learn Magic, Hogwarts, preferably -

_( - Hogwarts is his home, he knows it already, somehow - )_

Twenty years later, Alfred Reginald Macdonald is going to burn, with the coals of the same fireplace, where he called him a pathetic - _and Peter Macdonald is going to laugh._

Laugh, and laugh, and laugh - no regrets.

_( - as he laughs, he's going to remember everything, everything - finally - he won't just be Peter Macdonald anymore, he's also going to be the Boy who - )_

He is going to be so grateful.

___

The rickety, wooden sign says _"Wool's Orphanage,"_ and Peter watches as it makes his father scoff angrily - and feels reconciliation with it.

"Hello, yes, Mrs Cole, I'm Mr. Alfred Reginald Macdonald," his father says, pompously, like he always does, shaking hands with the harried looking Matron at the door. "I was told you're having problems with a particular boy. Tom Riddle?"

"Yes, yes, Tom is - well, he's always been a bit strange," she says, starting to walk briskly towards the back, pursing her lips irritatedly. "And now, he's - he's doing all these things, and I always told Martha, he's the devil's spawn, this child is, and now look! What I don't understand is who all you people are, and why're you the ones coming to help me with the boy, and not the police?!"

Peter watches as his father shows her a charmed document, which Mrs. Cole gobbles up easily.

"Very well, then, very well," she said, opening the door to the grounds at the back. "The boy's here, go see for yourself. He refuses to come down."

_Come down?_

Peter and his father walked out, a little warily, glancing upwards, Peter gasping in shock and awe - his father staring, his eyes wide.

The boy was just - hanging there. Not hanging exactly, but floating. Could even grown wizards fly? Peter had never seen anyone ever fly. But here was Tom Riddle, a six year old orphaned child - just floating lazily in the sky.

_( - Voldemort can fly, he says, out of breath, panicky and then, Peter shakes that off, what does that even mean? - )_

"Tom? Mr. Tom Riddle?" his father called, his voice gentler than when he talked to Peter, which stung a little. "Please come down, Mr. Riddle. We have - quite a few things to discuss."

The boy looked at them and then, floated down, just as breezily, as if he were riding the wind, smiling politely in greeting, naturally handsome features - cutting cheekbones and dark eyes.

"Yes?"

His father seemed a little surprised that the boy had come down just by calling him, when he hadn't done that before for Mrs. Cole - but he chalked it down to his merit, and puffing his chest a little said, "My name is Mr. Alfred Reginald Macdonald. Mr. Riddle, this is going to sound a little strange, but I have to ask, when did you realise you could - uh - fly?"

The boy smiled, still very polite, not reaching his eyes - the way father smiles at Peter in public.

"Oh, just a while ago," he said, apparently amused, as he settled down cross legged in front of them on thin air, four feet off the ground. "Can you fly, too?"

Peter could see his father struggling to answer that. He finally settled on 'not at all jealous mentor.'

"Its quite a rare thing, Mr Riddle," he said, his eyes slightly wide, like he couldn't believe the amount of balance Tom had. "Infact, I would go so far as to say, I have only ever heard of one person to ever manage it. And since, we are, on the topic of flying - are you aware of the term called magic? Its doubtful, considering the place where you grew - "

Peter saw the exact moment. He could literally pinpoint the second Tom Riddle's whole demeanor changed - the way his father's eyes threw scorn - and the polite smile grew into a sweeter, colder, _sharper version_.

"The place I grew up in?" Tom interrupted, looking perfectly calm. "I assure you, Mr. Macdonald, you have absolutely no rights to judge the place I grew up in, in anyway whatsoever."

"Oh, dear boy, I wasn't judging at all, I was merely commending on your excellent magical abilities, despite growing up with - "

Tom Riddle laughed, harshly, sounding way older than a six year old.

"Despite growing up with _filthy muggles?_ " he said, mockingly - shocking his father again with the use to 'muggles.'

"Of course not, Tom," his father said, a little angrily, having gained his composure at being buffed my a kid. "I was hoping you would explain to me how you know so much about the Magical World, and to inform you of some of our rules and regulations, which are in place - "

"I doubt it," Tom said, airily again, rising upwards - higher and higher, like he was leaping but could continue forever. "I don't really want to hear your rules, Mr. Macdonald. And I would prefer, if you don't call me Tom. Mr. Riddle should suffice."

"Boy, listen, here," his father began, almost shouting as Tom had gone up really high. "I have ways to bring you down again, so it would be better if you just obey - "

"Obey?" Tom Riddle said, his voice so icy, the man flinched back. "You ask me to _obey_ you? You filthy, old mudblood - you _dare_ ask me to obey you?"

Peter could almost feel his father seethe, as the boy said mudblood, and he took out his wand and pointed it at the boy, "Accio - "

Snap.

The wand broke, the wood splintering in half easily, and Tom Riddle sunk lower, smiling broadly. 

"You called?" he said jeeringly, grinning.

His father's eyes were wide, his face slack and pale - as the boy drops elegantly on to the ground, shoes barely rustling the grass. 

There was a sudden hissing noise, and Peter spun around, terrified - really, really scared of this tall, pale boy - and searched till his eyes settled on a thin, long blue snake, that curled around and around -

_Oh. Merlin._

The snake was so long that it had formed a perfect circle around him and his father, quietly slipping through the grass. Peter watched his father flounder for the first time, honestly scared, and felt a tinge of delighted vindictiveness - as the snake curled up his leg and around his waist, its hood coming to rest parallel to his neck, forked tongue flicking as it hissed - it wouldn't really bite father, would it? 

Tom Riddle came closer, his nose almost touching his father, as he rose a little off the ground.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle," he said, silkily, his voice soft and dangerous. "Heir of Slytherin. You will remember me," he smiled, as his father choked, whether due to the snake or the information, he didn't know, "And when you walk out of here, you will tell everyone that the issue is dealt with. Do you understand?"

_( - Peter remembers another dream that he's had of fire and secrets, of blood and letters - TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE - which flick and switch to make the more familiar words - I AM LORD VOLDEMORT - )_

"Ye - yes," his father said, inching his head away from the snake. "Alright, Mr. Riddle."

"That's enough, Asp," the boy said, his voice suddenly pleasant and light again. "Thank you for your assistance, Mr Macdonald. I assume you will be making sure Mrs Cole has no - uh - memories of the event?"

His father nodded jerkily, breathing heavily as the snake, Asp, crawled down the length of his body, and curled up Riddle's instead, settling around his neck, like a scarf.

_Which is when something hits Peter, hard._

"Tom?" he says softly, as his father blanches in shock - at little squib Peter's audacity - and turns to glare at him.

Tom Riddle turns to him, and looks at him, for the first time, inhaling sharply.

 _"Salazar,"_ he whispers, brokenly, staring at Peter's face. "Impossible."

He wants to run, flee - hide - but something in him stops him, and instead of saying the normal, shy, "hello," he says,

"I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make - " he says, his voice low and firm - even as his father grips his shoulder painfully, in warning - giving into instinct.

Tom Riddle breathes out slowly.

" - _bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to_ ," Riddle finishes, shaking his head slowly. 

_( - a brown haired witch is on his right, a red haired boy, with too many freckles on his left - and all he can feel is joy, joy, joy - )_

"We meet again, Tom," he says.

 _"Harry Potter,"_ he breathes out, incredulously. "The Boy Who Lived."

They smile at each other, and its slow, and excruciating and easily, the most satisfying thing he has ever done.

> _when the battle is done,  
>  and you think you've won  
>  don't dance on my grave just yet -_
> 
> _if you're the moon,  
>  then i'm the sun -  
>  i will not allow you to forget_
> 
> _in my own time,  
>  i'll take back what's mine  
>  \- for i am not your friend_
> 
> _in the dark of the night  
>  and the shifting of the tides  
>  i'll come for you then._


	2. see i've come to burn your kingdom down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > _
>> 
>>   
>  "the fire can't touch him,  
>  for he's burned one too many times  
>  the sea can't harm him,  
>  for he's drowned one too many times  
>  but don't rip his heart open - \- for he's never known love before."  
> 
>> 
>> _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is basically Tom's side the first few years and when and how Tom got his voldemort-time memories 
> 
> also : OC pov

____

The first memory - and the last one - of her parents, that Mia had, was of a sunny day. Funny, how every scary, sad thing seems to happen on grey, rainy days - but when Mia almost drowned, the sun shone brightly - white flowers scattered around the meadows and birds chirping -

_  
" - of course, Jen, she might come back, she's always been too sharp for her own good - "_

_" - so you just, what, pushed her off the - she's your daughter, Henry - "_

_" - so you say, she's not really my daughter, I'm not foolish - she looks nothing like me, and don't think I don't know what you were doing at that apothecary the entire year - "  
_

Mia Williams was seven. 

_( - that's what she had been told, but who really knew? - )_

Mia Williams had no parents. 

_( - or she did, but that wasn't important - )_

Mia Williams knew there was something wrong with Tom Riddle. 

_( - people warned her when she first came - )_

Everyone knew there was something wrong with Tom Riddle. Everyone _objectively_ knew there was something wrong with Tom Riddle. It was odd, even to Mia Williams at seven when she first came to the Orphanage, brought forcefully by a man who had caught her nicking a slice of bread from the kitchens behind the local pub - even as the tall blonde girl - Amy Benson - and the short brown haired boy - Billy Stubbs, and the other one who followed them around - Dennis, maybe? - told her all about how Tom Riddle was abnormal, a freak, he was _so_ dangerous - 

She had barely entered the place, Mrs. Cole had gone about blustering and the three nine-year olds had apparently decided to take Mia under their wing.

> The abuse of a child generally occurs when a carer who views a child as being "different", attributes this difference to the child being _"possessed"_ or involved in _"witchcraft"_ , and attempts to exorcise him or her or requests others to perform exorcism upon the child.

They had a big, grey and red book with a black title that she couldn't read yet, with stories she couldn't read yet - but the pictures were frightening enough. Did Tom Riddle _really_ have eyes like that? Did he really have souless -

"Look sharp, Williams," Mrs. Cole said, shoving a thin blanket and a small bathing mug in Mia's hands. "You're in Room 14." 

Amy and Dennis and Billy all gasped in horror - and Mia knew she was done for. 

"It only has one occupant," Mrs. Cole continued, avoiding Mia's eyes, which didn't reassure her at all. "If you have too many problems - well. We'll see. Maybe, you'll sleep in the mess hall, eh?" 

She laughed, but Mia could tell she was only half joking. 

She walked down quietly to the room, listening to Amy tell her all about how to avoid Tom Riddle's ire. At the door, she cast a nervous glance in the barely furnished, white walled room and waving a hasty goodbye, almost ran back down the hall.

> Often said to include speaking in tongues _and strange guttural voices, levitating and clinging objects and said body to bedroom walls,_ disturbed thoughts and revulsion of holy objects and sacred spaces, the first documented demonic possession spanned several decades beginning in 1712 when a little girl named Anna, was just 14 years old.

Mia squared her shoulders, and raised her chin - like she'd seen an older girl do in the park when she fell to force himself to not cry - and taking a deep breath, walked inside.

And came face to face, or rather face to chin - with - with a small dark haired boy, thin and pale, his eyelashes long and thick - and eyes that were quite a normal shade of dark. Black-brown-something. 

He was barely five. 

Mia felt a sudden irritation rising as she realised that the three kids outside must have had quite a good laugh, because she was so gullible that she believed the first people she saw. She _knew_ how places like these worked. She _knew_ that nobody really cared about you. She also knew not to believe in bullshit like spirits possessing the bodies of five year olds - 

Ignoring the boy, who was looking at her with suspicious eyes - _like any normal kid would do_ \- and dumping the blanket and what meagre supplies Mrs. Cole had arranged for her on the empty bed, she went out again. 

Amy, Dennis and Billy were standing under the tree - and like she already knew they would be - grinning and laughing boisterously. 

She _hated_ people like that. The ones who picked on the new kids because they were the easiest targets. Who picked on the littlest ones, the ones who seemed the softest, like Tom - the ones who were _kind_ \- 

Before Mia knew what was happening, before she had even thought of what she was going to do - she was standing in front of the three - 

Mia had never been soft. Atleast, not since a year. That bright, sunny day when they were all _just going out as a family to have some lunch by the lakeside_ \- 

And. 

She got into fights almost everywhere, even with boys five years older than her.

_( - there was sand and so much anger - and red - drip, drip drip, like the day she pulled herself out of the lake because her parents were nowhere to be seen - )_

Her hair was coated with dust as she spat, and thought that they wouldn't fool her again, nobody would - not again, _not like then_ \- she wouldn't let them - she wouldn't ever let them get her to trust them and then betray her - _push her off_ \- 

And. 

"No dinner tonight, Williams," Mrs. Cole said, her face screwed up distastefully. "Seems like Room 14 has another - " 

She didn't hear much after that. 

Her knuckles were bleeding, all of them red and blue and purple and swollen - and her front tooth was chipped but Amy and Dennis both had broken noses, and Billy had a scrape on his knee from when he ran away so it was alright.

_( - "he's the devil's child, you'll see, maybe he's already tainted her too" - )_

Tom Riddle looked at her with a blank face - but there was something there, something that said - something that asked, _do you believe in me?_ \- so vulnerable and so fragile -

_( - there were two staircases and fifty nine steps connecting the lower rooms to their room - )_

Billy Stubbs came somewhere around eleven in the night, and Mia gasped and panted as she struggled under the sheets that were smothering her - there was no air at all - he was really going to kill her - he was going to _choke her to death -_

 _"Stubbs?"_

Billy froze at that. It was a harsh kind of whisper - the kind that sent shivers running down Mia's spine - this couldn't be the voice of a _five year old_ \- it was commanding and imperious and entitled like, like - 

Billy didn't reply as his hands stilled - breathing heavily as Mia sucked in air, trying to get up - the itchy blanket was pushing and pulling and there was no _space_ \- 

"This isn't your room, Stubbs," Tom Riddle said, and there was a shuffling sound as the little boy sat up. "Get out." 

Billy hesitated for a second - just as Mia sat up - and she saw it, she saw, she saw, she did - 

_Red eyes. Eyes that gleam like the fire of -_

"Who're you to tell me to - " Billy began, quite stupidly. 

_"I said, get out."_

Billy walked out immediately, and Mia caressed her neck gently, not knowing what to think - whispering a, "Thank you, Tom." 

His eyes weren't gleaming red anymore. 

"I didn't do it for you," he said, his voice soft and high pitched like a child and Mia could almost feel his jaw clenching grudgingly. "They would blame it on me if something happened to you." 

"Thank you," she repeated, more forcefully, and opened her window - _it still felt like she was being strangled_. 

He scoffed and there was a rustling sound as he laid down again. 

There was something very, _very_ wrong with Tom Riddle. 

Just not in the way most people thought.

_( - Tom yells in the night, sometimes, and wakes up shaking and coughing. Mia doesn't mention his nightmares in the morning - )_

> A child could be viewed as "different" for a variety of reasons including: disobedience; independence; nightmares; illness, perceived or physical abnormality or disability. The child may also be seen as the reason for the family's or community's misfortune or a _source of infecting others with "evil"._ When families and/or communities hold this belief about a child they may be terrified of him or her, and may feel that everything is under threat - even their lives.

Mia Williams was eight.

Mia Williams was also Tom Riddle's. 

That wasn't to say they were close friends or even anything - no, not at all. But they lived with a mutual kind of understanding. 

When Billy and Amy glared daggers at Mia across the mess hall, Tom glared right back. 

They paled before turning the other way. 

When he got sent to his room, for whatever it was that he did - which was a hundred times in a week - Mia sneaked him some dinner. When Mia found a small stray puppy and brought him inside to play with - Tom didn't snitch on her - just like she let him play with his snakes. 

At age eight, Mia was safe. 

Nobody would dare touch anyone who Tom Riddle had claimed for himself - and she understood now. Why everyone was so scared of him. She really, _really_ did. But Mrs. Cole was foolish, and ignorant - she let fear become hatred instead of awe - and the others did the same -

_( - Her school book was floating five feet above the ground when she came in the room, Tom's finger outstretched towards it._

_He dropped it, startled, as soon as he saw her, a strange resignation crossing his expression, before it smoothed out to what was his holier-than-thou face. He looked at her expectantly, his fingers twitching nervously, as if expecting her to scream._

_"Can you do it with something heavier than a grammar book, Tommy?" she asked, laughing and opening the window in the centre of the room._

_He scowled viciously at the nickname but his shoulders fell down, like he was relieved. - )_

____

On Tom Riddle's sixth birthday, they called in the priest. 

Father Theophilus came all the way from the church to Wool's Orphanage, in a huge white carriage, like the ones noblemen had. 

Father Theo was a very tall man, with white hair and a long white beard - a figure looming in the dark - and Mia had a bad feeling about this. They wouldn't really _exorcise_ a six year old boy, would they - 

Mia had read about the process, in the state library - the three dark pages torn and crinkled and stuffed in her dress pocket - it looked like, it looked it - it seemed horrible - 

There's a bucket of water and the priest is rough and _holding Tom's head in_ \- and what if he's a second _too late_ \- Mia personally knows how horrible it is, she watches with horror as his legs struggle -

_( - Tom is just six, she wants to say, and his pale skin burns with every whip lash - )_

> Parents or carers may believe they are doing the right thing for the child i.e. the child is the victim of a supernatural force and they are trying to save the child by driving out the devil. 
> 
> Emotional/psychological abuse in the form of isolation e.g. not allowing a child to eat or share a room with family members or threatening to abandon them, or telling a child they are evil or possessed. The child may also accept the abuse if they are coerced into believing they are possessed. Where the faith includes belief in an afterlife, the child may also be told they will be punished for all eternity. 
> 
> Some faith groups practice exorcism rites which involve a degree of violence – the understanding is frequently that the evil spirit is occupying the body, and so by making the body an uncomfortable place to be, it can be driven out. 
> 
> This is especially dangerous, because pleas to stop can be interpreted as coming from the demon rather than the sufferer. Here, consent – even if given – will probably not avail a defendant if the victim suffers actual bodily harm (anything more than “transient or trifling” injury).

Tom _screamed_ when the burning wax dripped down his eyelids.

Mia screamed louder, struggling against Mrs. Cole's grip.

Tom screamed once more, his voice so _terrified_ and then there was a loud _woosh_. 

The candle in the prayer hall seemed to be brighter for a second before it snuffed out, Tom's screams disappearing with them.

_( - "I remember you," the cold voice in the dark said, suddenly and mockingly. "Father Theo, isn't it?" - )_

The red eyes gleamed, and this time - they were brighter, more complete - 

_( - "Tom, Tom, what're you doing - Tom, don't, wait - "_

_"My name is not Tom," the voice said, and Mia could hear the smile in it. "And you don't deserve to live." - )_

___

They attended the funeral of Father Theophilus on a saturday morning at the chapel cemetary.

Nobody noticed Tom sitting near the sea shore when they left to go to the chapel - _hidden in plain sight._

_( - "I wish I could keep you alive," the voice whispered in the dark, cruelty in its edge. "I wish I could make you regret ever touching me." - )_

___

Mrs. Cole seemed quieter after the funeral. Happier, more sensible. Softer. She didn't drink as much. She didn't shout as much. Almost like someone had her under control - had her only doing things they wanted her to do - 

Nobody ever talked about it, but Mia knew, like all the others did, Father Theo had died in a carriage accident on his way from the church to the orphanage. It had been a rainy day after all, she acknowledged, and carriages with wheels that weren't upto shape did veer off the roads quite a lot. He had never managed reaching Wool's, and - 

_( - the screams still echoed in her ears sometimes, but she didn't know who was screaming - who was begging for help - who was the young - thin boy in the dark with the red, red eyes - )_

Mia wondered if Tom knew anything about them. He probably did. He usually knew everything. Tom Riddle was Mia's roommate, a quiet boy about two years younger than her - 

_( - if you asked Mia to describe him, she wouldn't know what to say - because somehow, everything about him aside from the obvious - she just forgot, like water slipping between her fingers - )_

"Morning, Tom," she said, as she got out of her bed - throwing aside the duvet he had given her, and trying to open the window in the room. "Sleep well?" 

_( - don't open this window, a voice whispers in her head - )_

"Well enough," he would reply, like always, passing her a polite nod. He was always like that, she thought, polite and calm, his smiles small and automatic and _neat and polite_ \- 

"You going for breakfast? Or the library?" she asked, leaving the window pane and draping her towel on her left shoulder as she rummaged through the drawer to find a toothbrush. 

"Shore," he said, shortly. "Probably near the garden area."

_( - she could hear him hissing sometimes in the dark, but that was strange, right? Tom never did anything like that - )_

She didn't ask more and he didn't tell more but sometimes, she could almost swear that she saw him flying - _actually flying,_ \- his arms spread wide - 

She found her brush, and forgot all about Tom Riddle, like she always did when he disappeared. _Out of sight, out of mind._ She ate her breakfast in peace, looking every once in a while at the dark stain under the candle stand in the small prayer hall they had.

_( - "Just some color some clumsy child dropped," Mrs. Cole said, dismissively when asked, but there was a frown on her face. "Red color - it - I didn't think - yes, yes," she finally, said. "Just a little paint."_

_It doesn't look like just color, Mia wanted to say. She didn't say it, though, because saying things makes them more real - more tangible - )_

People flitted in and out of the orphanage a lot, not people looking for adoption - just some people. Some of them carried little sticks in their hands. Mia didn't know who they were, and when she asked Mrs. Cole once, she just frowned confusedly and said she didn't know herself.

_( - But Mia had heard her greet them at the door, had heard her calling the police, but for what? And why didn't she remember? - )_

Tom Riddle came back before dinner, and they sat together and ate like always, quiet, with polite nods and small smiles - nobody ever said anything to him as he took extra share from the table, Mrs. Cole not even blinking -

_( - When she was thirteen and the old man with the white beard came, with a thick envelope for Tom in his hand, decorated with green ink - she thought he looked a lot like Father Theophilus._

_Tom might have thought that too but wait -_

_That wasn't quite right, was it? She _didn't know what_ Father Theo looked like because she had never actually _seen_ Father Theo - because he had never made it to the orphanage, he hadn't, he hadn't - )_

When she switched the dim lights off in the room, Mia tripped on something - and she glanced down - it was long and dark and _slithering_ \- 

Tom likes snakes, a small voice in her head supplied. They're harmless, don't worry. 

_But she didn't know that, did she? She couldn't remember anything much about -_

"Good night, Tom," she whispered, taking a deep breath. 

"You too, Mia," he said, quietly.

_( - Why was Father Theo coming to the Orphanage from the church in the first place? - )_

____

Tom Riddle got a scholarship to some fancy boarding school in Scotland. 

He always had been so smart, she thought easily. 

When he came back from his breaks, he was the same. Quiet, polite - but people naturally deferred to him. They always had, from what she remembered. 

The first year in the orphanage was a little murky for her. 

When she saw him - when she _could_ see him, she should say, because he barely spent a month at the orphanage now - outside their shared room, he was always near the sea, or in the yellow fields - with a thin boy around his age, with dark hair and bright, vibrant green eyes. They looked wrong to her somehow, eyes as vibrant as these could only be -

_( - red - )_

_( " - theatre, then, Peter?" Tom said, grinning sharply at the boy, as Mia watched from the swings._

_"Stop calling me that, Mr. Lord Voldemort, Sir," the other boy replied and laughed as Tom looked away, gritting his teeth._

_"I was fifteen and an idiot, alright?" Tom replies, and Mia thinks that he's not even fifteen now - )_

When she was fourteen, she came in the room late one night, and glanced at the bed next to her, switching on her side light, and trying and failing to open the room window.

_( - there's something wrong with the hinges, probably, yeah that seemed possible it was an old place - )_

_On the bed next to her, there are two dark haired boys, young, pale faces - asleep - wrapped under the coverings, their arms entangled - Tom's lashes flitting across a strange scar on the other boy's forehead._

When the boy shifts his arm, she moves back hurriedly but not before she's seen the back of his hand, where it's carved in clear script, _I must not tell lies_ \- 

But what's the truth? _What's his truth?_

_( - in the dark sometimes, she imagines red eyes and sounds of a leather whip hitting tender skin, and screams, screams, screams - )_

___

Mia Williams was sixteen when she saw Tom Riddle for the last time. 

"But you're only fourteen," she said, hesitantly. "How would you find your own place to - " 

"My father," he said, seeming a little surprised himself that he'd told her. "He - er - he had quite a lot of money. He was rich, had a big house. He's - well. He died last year, and I've inherited his properties." 

"Come visit sometime, would you?" Mia asked, with a small smile. "With that green-eyed boy of yours?" 

He turned towards her sharply, looked at her once - and his face creased into what was probably the first genuine smile he ever gave her. 

"Take care, Mia," he said, softly. 

She smiled back. 

His trunk was packed and at the door he stopped once, "If - if you ever need help, you can - uh - just - call me." 

"Call you?" she asked, bemusedly. "Like telephone you?" 

"No," he shook his head. "Just say my name. I'll know."

She believes him.

> _  
> "he was not her enigma  
>  to unravel  
>  but  
>  she could find  
>  colors  
>  to paint his shadow under  
>  the  
>  moon - _
> 
> _\- a year from now,  
>  he's somebody  
>  to remember  
>  he's somebody  
>  to her, _
> 
> _( - he's a ghost - )_
> 
> _a reflection in the window pane  
>  someone she forgets  
>  but  
>  never really  
>  because  
>  she knows in her heart  
>  somewhere, with  
>  the wildfire that rages under her _
> 
> _( - prickling under her skin, its right on her tongue, "its not paint, mrs cole, it never was," - )_
> 
> _that it all  
>  started from here  
>  the grim, old walls  
>  hide secrets that  
>  she wants  
>  to  
>  remember"  
>  _

_( - and she's thirteen and eavesdropping and Tom is eleven and the man who looks like Father Theo, because she does know what Father Theo looked like, asks, "Do you believe in magic, Tom?" - )_

"I'll call for you," Mia whispers, glancing at the empty bed, thinking, thinking - 

There's a sudden, strong wind that opens her window with a jerk and she goes to shut it, realising that the window _never_ opens anymore, how long has it been since she opened it -

There are three dark crumpled pages stuck tight between the hinge and the pane that float out, and she remembers - 

_( - she remembers tearing them from the library book when she first heard the priest was coming, she remembers - she knows - she knows who was screaming - she remembers the stain and the wax and the blood and the way Tom looked at her with empty eyes when she returned from the funeral - )_

She sighs as she sits down, and sticks up the pages on the wall because she doesn't know who made her forget them - but somebody did, somebody made everybody forget what had happened that night - 

She doesn't want to forget again. 

_Do you believe in magic, Tom?_

On the shelf behind his bed, the one that connects the two sides, there are two more names, and she's never seen these scribbles before - it says - 

_Tom Marvolo Riddle._

And under it, it says, carved into the stone, neatly - 

_Harry James Potter._

Mia looks back to her papers. 

She believes him.

___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not sure if it was clear but like harry, tom also didn't remember everything from the start, after the whole priest incident on his sixth bday, he remembers fully -- and well
> 
> its from Mia's pov, so there wasn't much and i wrote it practically coz i was bored
> 
> hope u enjoyed anyway
> 
> also tell me if you liked Mia as a character coz i want to write a story about her calling Tom for help, if anyone's interested

**Author's Note:**

> For similar works, check out my dashboard ;))
> 
> [every night before i sleep (i like to think you think of me)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28766853)


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